By Tanya Steele
On Sunday 28 May Healesville community groups and residents will unite once more on the banks of the Watts River to celebrate the 21st anniversary of the ongoing revegetation project in Coronation Park.
The celebration will be heralded by a morning tea from the Healesville Environmental Watch Inc (HEWI) and Healesville Lions Club, a celebratory talk or two and some more planting with assistance from the Yarra Ranges Council and support from Melbourne Water.
Ms Garth from HEWI said she hopes people will come along and lend a helping hand and have a cup of tea.
“Some people might want to come back and say, I what we remember we planted here,” she said.
Primary, high school and other community groups have helped with the planting and older sections of the park tell a tale of the contributions that have been made over time.
“It’s like any garden, some things survive and others might not,” Ms Garth said.
Ms Garth has been a part of the project for a number of years, with a slow and steady approach to rejuvenating the river area.
“We’ve regularly come down here since the very beginning and planted with school students just about every year,” she said.
The ongoing revegetation project aims to restore the banks of the Watts River to improve platypus habitat and the site has wonderful some older trees overlooking the river.
Ms Garth said that planting can be disrupted by weather events and not everything has survived over the 20 plus year time period.
“We put a few more in, some years there have been a couple of floods, but we accept that it’s nature,” she said.
“We can try and we just have to things grow and then we’ll just come back and fill in the gaps.”
The ongoing commitment to both Coronation and Queens Park is something special to Healesville and Ms Garth said long term community planting isn’t that common.
“A project like this you might do it for a couple of years and then you do something else, whereas this has had an ongoing contribution,” she said.
“I think Healesville is a really connected community.”
The public is invited to Coronation Park on Sunday 28 May for a free morning tea and registration until 10 am, then a celebratory talk and planting will take place.
BYO a cup for your drink and gloves.
Children must be accompanied by an adult.
Registrations are essential for catering to admin@hewi.org.au by Fri 26 May.
